by Jewel, Bella
“A little help,” she gasps over her shoulder.
I jog down the steps to the car. It’s not until I’m right behind her that I realise she’s wrestling with Ace. “What are you doin’?”
She stumbles to the side when I push my way in. I pause when I get a good look at Ace, my stomach lurching with fear, its onset so swift and so strong it steals my breath.
“Baby?” She’s unconscious, her body sagging backward after I shunted Echo sideways. I reach out, grappling for purchase before her head hits the gearshift. “No, no, no, no, no,” I rasp softly, almost too scared to touch her for fear of doing more damage. I manage to get one arm beneath her shoulders and slide her forward. My other arm slides underneath her knees. “What the hell happened?” I snap at Echo as I lift her from the car.
Ace’s arm drops limp and her head falls back, hair trailing down as I carry her up the stairs. Her cheekbone is swollen and there’s blood on her face and clothes. I know the rational part of my mind has taken charge because I’m functioning, but the irrational part is banging its fists against the door I’ve trapped it behind, burning with rage and fear because seeing Ace like this is terrifying. It’s my mother all over again.
“I don’t know,” Echo says, a little breathless as she jogs up behind me. “She delivered the car and was taking too long coming out. She wasn’t answering her phone so I got out and found her like this by the side entrance.”
She opens the front door wide, and I pass through, turning sideways so I don’t bump Ace’s head or bang her feet. I carry her at a fast clip into her bedroom and lay her on the bed with care. Her head slumps sideways, and I brush hair from her face, the pads of my fingers skimming her forehead lightly. It’s hot and beaded with sweat, her face pale. “Ace? Baby, wake up.”
Nothing.
My stomach is in knots.
“Babe.”
Nothing. Jesus.
“Did Tony do this?”
Because if he did …
“I don’t know anything, Kelly. I didn’t even know the boost was happening until she sent me a message late this afternoon.”
My hands are shaking when I check her pulse, fumbling as I press fingers against the delicate skin of her wrist. My eyes find her face and memories assault me. I’m twelve again and hiding in my room, unable to fight back. Casey is late home from school, but Dad is home early from work. There’s yelling and screaming and my chest is tight because I can’t breathe. Later I find Mum in the bathroom, her blond hair mussed, her body dressed in winter clothing despite the heat of summer. She’s leaning close to the mirror, trying to cover her bruises with foundation and a sponge. She catches me watching her through the mirror’s reflection and a smile forms on her face. I don’t have it in me to smile back. I can’t, because hers isn’t real. My mother is trying to hide her feelings from me, but she forgets how much her eyes speak.
“It’s okay,” she says, dropping the fake smile and turning. She’s been subjected to so much relentless brutality, yet she takes hold of my chin with gentle fingers and lifts it with excessive care, as though I were the most precious gem in the world. “I’m okay, Kelly.”
But her voice cracks.
That was the first time my thoughts turned dark.
I was getting older. Stronger. Bigger. I was starting to realise it didn’t have to be like this, and I remember what I had read recently. The enemy doesn’t stand a chance when the victim decides to survive.
It was right then and there that I knew my father would die. We would leave, and I would come back and kill the man who broke my mother.
I just didn’t know he would kill her first.
“Kelly.”
I shake my head, returning to the present. My heart is beating like I’ve run a mile. The suppressed memory has wrecked me.
“Kelly. She’s shivering so much.”
Ace is almost convulsive, her limbs twitching and jerking of their own accord and her jaw trembling. She moans. “We need to get her under the blankets.”
Working together, I lift Ace up and Echo rips the quilt down. When I set her back down we pull them up to her chin.
“Get me some ice.” Her cheekbone is swelling further and her face is pale beneath the rising bruises.
Echo runs off and I get my phone out, calling Fox.
He answers in five rings. “Yeah.”
“I’m at Ace’s house. Need you here.”
I hang up.
Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, he knows I’d never make the request if it wasn’t urgent. He’ll be here.
I sink to the edge of the bed, brushing at Ace’s hair. Her eyes blink open and she winces. “Kelly?” Her voice is like sandpaper. I lean closer and she reaches up to cup my face in her palm, her touch whisper-soft before her arm flops back to the bed. “You cut your hair.”
She’s sick and bleeding in her bed, and she worries over my hair? “Yeah.” I rub a hand over my freshly shorn head, not used to the shorter strands. “It was time.”
“Time?” she whispers.
With our features so similar, keeping my hair longer stopped me from looking in the mirror and seeing my brother looking back at me. But when I looked in the mirror after finishing work today, all I saw was a man I didn’t recognise. So yeah, it was time. And as I sat in the barber chair after work today, hair falling to the ground around me until it was short, rather than see Casey staring back at me, I saw me. And for the first time in forever, I didn’t feel the urge to smash the mirror into a thousand pieces.
“Stop worryin’ about my damn hair,” I say gruffly as Echo comes back with ice wrapped in a tea towel. She hands it to me before leaving in search of the first aid kit.
I press it gently to Ace’s cheekbone. She lets out a hiss at the cold contact and her pain makes me sick. “Babe.”
“I’m okay,” she whispers, trying for a smile.
I fight for air as she looks at me the same way my mother did. A million emotions punch through me: helplessness, frustration, rage, grief. It all wars with the need for vengeance. I’m not a scared little boy anymore. I grew up. And no one I care about will ever be a victim again.
My jaw tightens. “You’re not.”
“I am,” she croaks.
“Don’t argue with me, woman.”
“Then don’t argue with me, man.”
She’s ridiculous and stubborn and for fuck’s sake, how can she make me want to laugh in the midst of this hell? I shift the ice pack down to her jaw. Another hiss escapes.
“I found my mother’s diary once,” I tell her. “I read it.”
“You did not,” she says, taking my change of subject in her stride. Her croaky voice sounds scandalised.
“I did. But I forgot until now.”
“What made you remember?”
I keep talking, not answering her question. I’m not tellin’ her this just because I have an urge. I’m tellin’ her because I need her to understand something. “She used to believe in magic and fairy tales. Even at the age of forty, when she died. I remember it underlined three times in her book: No one is too old for fairy tales.” How her handwritten words are so bright after having pushed them deep into the abyss of my mind, I don’t know. But they’re right there, and I can’t blink them away. My eyes burn.
“Kelly?”
I look at Ace and it hurts more. “Fairy tales are hope, babe. They’re hope. But her hope rested on the shoulders of a man who would never change. A man who beat her because she was foolish enough to love him. A man who never let her go, no matter how many times she tried to leave. So she stayed, and eventually he killed her. And maybe you can’t bear to look at me because of what I did—”
Her indrawn breath is sharp. “Kelly—”
“But you need to know this. Tony is just like my father. It’s not just about this one list. You’ll try to leave, but he won’t let you. He’ll always want more, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get it, even if that means never letting you go. Even if it means hu
rting you in more ways than you ever imagined possible. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Her eyes search mine for a long moment, and I know she can see my heart in my eyes because they’re the same as my mother’s, and in hers I saw everything she could never hide. I can’t hide from Ace. Everything inside me is exposed.
“You’re going to kill him.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kelly
A knock comes at the front door. Fox has saved me from tellin’ her exactly what I plan to do to Marchetti. Echo comes in with a glass of water and the first aid kit while I rise from the bed.
“I’ll be right back.”
I open the front door and find both Fox and Murphy on the doorstep. Fox is still on shift because an ambulance is parked out front and he’s in uniform. Murphy is dressed in black leather pants and a white tank top. She’s talking to Fox, and he’s glaring down at her, appearing unimpressed. I miss her question as I stand there propping the door open with my body, but I don’t miss Fox’s reply.
“I don’t know you, lady, so I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”
His reply is short and not his usual flirty bullshit, but he knows something’s up, and he’s worried.
My eyes narrow on Murphy. “You need to leave before I make you leave.”
“Who is she?” Fox asks, his eyes not moving from hers.
Murphy’s expression is mutinous. Great. Another stubborn bitch digging in her heels.
“Marchetti’s minion,” I tell him.
“I’m not leaving,” she declares. “Not until I know Ace is okay.”
Fox shoots his gaze to me. “What the hell happened to Ace?”
“Good question. We don’t have the full story.” My eyes narrow further on Murphy. “What happened to Ace?”
She looks between the both of us, breathing deep and nostrils flaring as though she doesn’t want to talk at all, then she says the one thing I wasn’t expecting her to say. “You happened.”
My mouth opens and closes. “Excuse me?”
“You got involved and Tony doesn’t like that. Trust me when I tell you that you need to get yourself uninvolved.”
Fox and I share a glance. Neither of us factored this into the plan. Stupid. So damn stupid. “So what you’re saying,” I reiterate to Murphy in an eerily calm and controlled voice, “is that he smacked her around because of me?”
My brother freezes for a moment, my words catching him off guard. “He touched her?” Fox barks in a loud voice. “Marchetti fuckin’ touched her?” He shoves past me and inside. “Where is she?”
“In her room.”
I’m alone on the front porch with Murphy. She shifts on her feet, and while her stature is small, she appears in no way intimidated by my size or my cold expression. “You need to leave.”
“Kelly—”
“Leave!” I roar, unable to restrain my anger any longer. “I don’t need you here deliverin’ Tony’s threat in the one place where Ace is supposed to feel safe, not when he’s already delivered it all over her face!”
“He doesn’t know I’m here!” she yells back.
I press my lips together for just a moment, surprised to find little Bambi has a backbone. It makes me wonder if her clueless exterior is a calculated façade. What is she hiding beneath those childlike brown eyes? I cock my head. “Then why are you here, Murphy?”
She huffs. “I’m here because I want to make sure Ace is okay.”
I fold my arms, still propping open the door. “What do you care?”
“I care.”
“Yeah? Well go care somewhere else.”
I shift back inside, the door starting to close behind me when she calls out, “Wait!”
I let the door close. Ace needs me. “Kelly!” she pounds her fist against the wooden frame and doesn’t let up. Frustration bubbles in my chest. I turn and wrench the door back open.
Murphy blinks and steps back, but there’s determination in the lift of her chin.
“What?”
“You and your Sentinels are planning something. I know. I hear things. You need to stop using Ace and rethink those plans.”
Using Ace? My mind reels backward as if punched. “Tony’s little rat hears things, huh? Well hear this, bitch. I’m in this to help Ace. I’m in this to get her out from under him for good. And if that means putting a bullet in his head and having to live in prison with that mark on my soul for the rest of my goddamn life, I’ll do it with fuckin’ bells on.”
I know I shouldn’t have said what I just said, but it’s too late now. I can’t take the words back, and I can’t control what Murphy chooses to do with them. It was a conscious decision to hide in plain sight with this car deal. I thought—we all thought—it would offer Ace protection. Is Marchetti really so narcissistic that he can’t see how putting his hands on Ace would affect me? That I wouldn’t react? But then again, if he actually believes I’m using Ace, it’s possible he would assume it wouldn’t affect me at all.
Murphy’s eyes go flat. “Don’t do it, Daniels.”
Who does she think she’s talkin’ to? My brows rise coolly. “You can’t stop me, Murphy.”
“Maybe not,” she says in a quiet tone. “But I’d hate to see you rot in prison.”
“Oh, you’d hate that, would you?”
“Yeah. I would.”
I shake my head, hiding my confusion. I don’t know what game this bitch is playing, but it’s gettin’ old. “I’m not going to tell Ace you were here, Murphy.” She doesn’t need to know that trouble has followed her to her doorstep. “Go. And don’t ever come back.”
Arcadia
I don’t know how long I’m out. There are vague recollections of things that happened while I was sick, though they could just be figments of my delirious imagination.
I remember at one point Kelly propping me up in bed and Echo shoving a large bowl in my lap as my belly heaved. I blinked at it once and then twice—because it was my grandmother’s and could they not find a bucket?—before hurling the entire contents of my stomach into it. She gave me that bowl five years ago, not long after being diagnosed with cancer. It came in a set of three and was lovely, sturdy, handcrafted crockery with a beige inside and eggshell blue exterior.
None of us had any inkling my grandmother was sick and neither did she. Then all of a sudden she had six months left, and we were making bucket lists, hot air ballooning, swimming with whale sharks off Ningaloo reef, and watching the sunrise from the peaks of the Snowy Mountains. It all happened so fast. It wasn’t until after she was gone that her diagnosis sunk in. Grandad held it together. He still is holding it together, somehow.
I think I might have rambled all this to Kelly after throwing up. I remember him laying me back down, wiping at my face with a deliciously cool cloth, while I told him to make sure he sterilises the bowl before using it to bake me a cake.
His chuckle was just as delicious as the cool cloth. “You want me to bake you a cake?” he asked.
I don’t remember replying. I was out.
Then there was the time Kelly stripped in my room. I definitely remember that. My eyes were weighted with bricks, but goddamn, I lifted those suckers like a champion weightlifter so I didn’t miss a thing. Then he stripped me too, muttering as I flopped about on the bed—as useful as a landed trout. He carried me butt-ass naked into the bathroom where a cool shower was raring to go. We sat on the cold tile beneath the spray, me propped between his spread legs while he lathered me with my favourite whipped soap and a sponge. The chilly water beat down over my chest and legs, washing the thick suds away.
It was magical, until I leaned forward and threw up down the drain. I don’t remember much after that, for which I’m exceedingly grateful.
Echo was in my room at one point, holding up dresses on hangers. “What about this one?” she would ask, holding up an evening gown in navy silk. After tossing it to the bed, she grabbed another. I remember catching a glimpse of horrid pink satin. “Or this?”
> “What the fuck, bitch?” I mumbled, trying to work out if this was some kind of hideous nightmare or real life, because who gave a crap about dresses when I was lying there dying?
“Pick a dress, Ace!”
My ears rang at her waspish tone. “That one,” I mumbled, not even bothering to open my eyes.
“The silver one it is.” I heard the rattle of hangers and the low rumble of Kelly’s voice. “She’s going to need jewellery, Kelly. You best take care of that.”
“What else?”
“Hair, makeup, bag, shoes, underwear,” she rattled off.
There was a pause in their conversation and then, “Can’t you do all of that?”
“Nope.” I sensed a hint of glee in her tone. Then there was another pause. I could almost feel the tension and heat of Kelly’s glare. “Fine,” she snapped. “I can arrange to have someone come here and do her hair and makeup, but the rest is on you.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” she retorted because maturity had officially made a mass exodus from the house.
The next thing I know I’m waking lucid for the first time with absolutely no recollection of how I got home or in my bed, though my head feels clear and my stomach is growling. The sheets on my bed smell freshly laundered, and the late afternoon sun is filtering through my room via the sheer white curtains that billow out gently from the open window.
I lie for a moment, just breathing. Everything aches, but my face aches most of all. My hand prods the injured area. The pain is a steady throb, focused mainly around my cheekbone and jaw. I blink. My vision in both eyes remains unhindered. I poke around at my right eyelid. It doesn’t feel swollen. That’s good. I bet it’s barely bruised at all. Kelly won’t even notice.
I know he’s been here, nursing me through this virus. Caring for me when I’m too sick to care for myself. It was stupid of me to think he would run in the opposite direction after being subjected to that family dinner at my parents’ house. Kelly isn’t a coward. His spine is truer than an arrow pointing due north. He may hide it behind a hardened disposition, with his leather cut and tattoos and his long hair and scruffy beard, but beneath that massive chest lies a heart as deep and as wide as the ocean.